An Anonymous, Verifiable E-Voting Tech

Kilrah_il writes "After the recent news items about the obstacles facing E-voting systems, many of us feel it is not yet time for this technology. A recent TED talk by David Bismark unveiled a proposal for a new E-voting technology that is both anonymous and verifiable. I am not a cryptography expert, but it does seem interesting and possibly doable."

Comments

Root problem

[Toe, The]

Better voting systems still won't fix the root issue: the people who get elected into power are corrupted by that power.

Metagovernment isn't perfect, and it will take a long time to get up and running, but... how does it compare to what we have now, where votes are sold to the highest bidder, idiots are in charge, and our participation is limited to 30 seconds in a booth every two years?

Re:Root problem

[DJ Jones]

The problem with this metagovernment system you reference is that the average person does not adequately understand our legal code well enough. This is the reason America is more of a republic. It was thought that electing "elite" officials who have our interests at heart but more direct knowledge of law would make better law makers.

If you live in state that allows referendums this concept becomes very apparent. I consider myself a well informed, educated individual. I've taken many business law classes and I write my own business contracts yet I still struggle to understand some of the legal code in the New Jersey referendums I've read. Even the dumbed-down translation they provide can be confusing to the average person.

Problems with Verifiable Voting

[Rich0]

I read the article - all zero words of it - so perhaps the multimedia component of it addressed this concern, but I find it hard to imagine how:

If I can verify that my vote was counted, and can prove how I voted if there was a fraud to force a recount/etc, how does the system make it impossible for me to prove to my boss/spouse/friends/church/etc how I voted?

The problem with receipts is that if you can prove how you voted, then you can punish people for not voting the right way. All an abusive husband has to do is tell her wife to show up with a receipt showing the correct votes or they'll be beaten. You can make the receipt private, but an abusive husband/wife/parent/boss/etc will just tell people to turn them over or they'll be punished.

The effects of this kind of thing can be very subtle. People will change their voting patterns even if they think they MIGHT be asked to show that receipt. Maybe everybody in their union or church or whatever voluntarily posts their receipts as a show of solidarity, and who wants to then be the one person who doesn't join in?

If a voting system is well-designed it should not be possible for anybody to prove how they voted. Other controls should be used to ensure all votes are counted.

Re:Problems with Verifiable Voting

[DeKO]

You do know that TED Talks consist of people going in front of other people and cameras, and talking, right? So perhaps the substance is indeed in the video.

The guy actually presents a very simple way to verify your vote was correctly registered, without ever revealing who you voted for. The secret is to remove the candidate names (by shredding that part of the ballot), scanning your vote into the system, and taking home the receipt, which contains no names. Only the system knows which is which. You can later use your receipt's code to see if it registered your vote properly (because it will match your receipt), but there is no way to know which candidate actually received that vote. It actually solves the problem of verification without compromising privacy.

Re:Forget cost - what is the POINT?

[Quantus347]

Do the words "Hanging Chad" mean anything to you? Paper voting has as many problems as E-voting, and as much potential for massive screw-ups. If there were a system that was actually secure, e-voting would be great. Unfortunately, the systems out there are all closed system "black box" deals where the manufacturer refuses to reveal any of the internal workings. Because of that the only people who actually know are the hackers using them to fix elections. If they were open, and thus subjected to rigorous enough testing to consider secure and reliable, we'd be golden.

Besides, you shouldn't really assume that the machine that electronically reads your paper ballad and transmits the results are any more secure/reliable as the purely electronic solution.

Re:His idea seemed bad to me

[lras]

Net result is that you and only you know who you voted for, and you can verify that your vote was counted.

Sorry for being dense, but how does that verify that my vote is affecting the the announced result of the election? Couldn't they just announce "X got 60% of the votes" anyway? (By jamming in a lot of false ballots, or by just lying?)